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I mean, that is a good question, but wargames are essentially a sub-type of a boardgame, up until the umpire-run simulations that you see in the military. 40k is in no way different to say, Infinity except by how many models it runs, and then 10 marines are essentially one model with 20 wounds and a single bolter with 40 shots when it comes to manouvering and combat.

But there are distinct differences.
The commitment, both financially and time/effort wise into playing 40k is much greater for a start.

When I think "wargaming" I tend to think of games that are platoon sized or larger engagements.

Not saying that's a correct or even appropriate definition though.

It's important in the sense that I think when you get down to those smaller games, female representation does start to improve for whatever reasons.

I think 'hybrid' is a good term for the design shift we are seeing. Not quite traditional board game/boxed game, not quite traditional wargame.

Anyway,female wargamers.

Are there any/many female writers/designers/industry leaders when it comes to wargames?

Companies are encouraged more and more not to go down the old school route of all male boardrooms etc. I agree. I tend to feel women being a different/broader perspective to things than us guys left on our own. Would more women in leading roles, or designer/developer lead positions help foster the changes and cultural shifts to get more girls and women onto our hobby?

What cultural shifts would we need, and why should we undertake those?

For what it's worth GW's board of directors is 57% female so I don't think that's actually causing the cultural shifts you seem to desire.
https://investor.games-workshop.com/the-board-of-directors/

GW did bump their female representation significantly last few years though, at least when it comes to miniatures.

Anyway, 40k requires more time/money investment, but surely that doesn't make it a "wargame", or the actual kriegsspiele wouldn't be a wargame, as it involved wooden blocks or chits, and yet it's definitely more of a war game than any GW game will ever be. GW games (and most other tabletop figurine games) are not really wargames in the traditional sense, as they very rarely trouble themselves with the issues of command and control. They simulate combat about as well as nerf guns simulate firearms.

Cronch wrote:
Anyway, 40k requires more time/money investment, but surely that doesn't make it a "wargame", or the actual kriegsspiele wouldn't be a wargame, as it involved wooden blocks or chits, and yet it's definitely more of a war game than any GW game will ever be.

It's not the investment, but I think the scale of the game is important in defining whether or not it's a wargame. Platoon size and up (40-50 models per side minimum) is kinda what I have in mind, but I'm sure others have different definitions.

The article in question starts off talking about historical wargaming and then ventures off talking about Warhammer.

I think if you set the bar for "wargaming" lower than that, the proportion of female gamers will grow, at least from my casual observation at the local gaming joints.

I think it's simply that women as a whole have far less interest in military topics, whether that's fiction or historical. Whilst 40k far more so than AoS, both are very much styled as military fiction in outlandish settings. I think that's got a lot more to do with upbringing and common media that stinky neckbeards - look at the boardgaming market for a comparison, where the amount of body odour is probably about as prevalent but has little trouble pulling in women.

I've known a fair few more women into Blood Bowl, Malifaux and even Infinity by comparison (proportionate to GW's playerbase size I mean). Even looking at DnD and other RPGs where participation of women isn't rare, it's been very rare you'll encounter women playing characters who're ex-soldiers compared to it being a pretty common background for male characters.

Even going back to GW, the vast majority of women I've known play tend to swerve towards the more outlandish, less militarised armies such as Sylvaneth, Nighthaunt, Daemons and Tyranids rather than Sisters of Battle or Sigmarines despite the obvious push for them to be the face of Warhammer female representation.

Platoon size and up (40-50 models per side minimum) is kinda what I have in mind

That's incredibly small, it gives you two, maximum 4 units to play with on the tabletop unless you go for the unrealistic and un-wargamey direction that 40k goes where "squads" are sections and each section can be drawn from completely different unit. Which is more of fantasy wish fulfilment than wargame.

Cronch wrote:

Platoon size and up (40-50 models per side minimum) is kinda what I have in mind

That's incredibly small, it gives you two, maximum 4 units to play with on the tabletop unless you go for the unrealistic and un-wargamey direction that 40k goes where "squads" are sections and each section can be drawn from completely different unit. Which is more of fantasy wish fulfilment than wargame.

I beg to differ, she says. < (female wargamer speaking here.)

It depends on the period you play.

WW2 and on a platoon evolves. So, arguably 40+ models is 10 fire teams of four plus fire support; mortar/HMG etc.

Arguably one could one add or two vehicles in support too.

So while this is definitely down scaled war, the platoon has from WW2 been considered the smallest formation that operate on the battlefield before you end up with isolated skirmishing. Happy to be proved wrong.

Sure, but they'd be all drawn from the same company, not 10 tactical marines, 5 laser cannon boys, 5 jump pack boys and 2 random tanks that happened to turn up. And I still think it doesn't give you enough elements to be a real wargame, it's literally a skirmish game because platoon vs platoon would be classified as skirmish not "battle" in any reality.

If you go by that, Bolt Action is a Skirmish game.

Cronch wrote:

Platoon size and up (40-50 models per side minimum) is kinda what I have in mind

That's incredibly small, it gives you two, maximum 4 units to play with on the tabletop unless you go for the unrealistic and un-wargamey direction that 40k goes where "squads" are sections and each section can be drawn from completely different unit. Which is more of fantasy wish fulfilment than wargame.

I did say "minimum". Basically removing the games that only have a handful to a few dozen models per side.

Battalion sized games just aren't practical in 28mm. If we use that as the bar, it might be more realistic in terms of "war", but then almost no one would be considered a wargamer on this forum other than those who collect games in smaller scales

But it's mostly an arbitrary number, I admit that, it's an arbitrary number I picked to say I don't consider games with a few handfuls of models to be "wargames". But maybe someone else does. It doesn't really matter, the question is just what games are we talking about in the context of this thread rather than some nebulous definition of a "wargame".

If all we're talking about is historics like Napoleonics, ACW, etc and Warhammer, I'd say low female involvement is an inevitability because there'll always be a discrepancy unless you can get women passionate about war, which doesn't seem like a great objective.

 BlackoCatto wrote:
If you go by that, Bolt Action is a Skirmish game.

If you go by that, War Games don't exist.

 trexmeyer wrote:

 BlackoCatto wrote:
If you go by that, Bolt Action is a Skirmish game.

If you go by that, War Games don't exist.

Not with minis, anyway. Companies like Avalon Hill have done wargames with cardboard counters covering whole theaters of operation clear on down to platoons and companies for longer than I've been alive... and I'm not exactly a spring chicken anymore.

Cronch wrote:
Sure, but they'd be all drawn from the same company, not 10 tactical marines, 5 laser cannon boys, 5 jump pack boys and 2 random tanks that happened to turn up. And I still think it doesn't give you enough elements to be a real wargame, it's literally a skirmish game because platoon vs platoon would be classified as skirmish not "battle" in any reality.

So a chunk of the Marines from a standard Battle Company, you mean? Y'know, the formation where, before all this Primaris silliness, the 100 troops were split into 60 Tactical, 20 Assault, 20 Devastator?

Miniatures games =/= wargames.

Wargaming in the classical sense has to do with simulationist intent (Cronch already mentioned Kriegsspiel) that was developed for leisure time table top play mostly through hex and counter design. A lot of miniatures gamers call themselves wargamers, which would not make much sense to people whose main hobby is playing wargames.

Miniatures games are certainly superficially about war in many cases but not always and just as certainly are not necessarily or even generally simulationist. Miniatures gaming tends to favor generating story, something I doubt anyone would say women don’t find appealing. Even something like Warhammer has virtually nothing to do with war as such; it’s really about characters doing interesting things in a fantastical story.

So even if we were to assume for the sake of argument that women don’t generally find war very appealing (which to me seems wrong) that would still be no explanation as to why women don’t play games about the sweeping dramatic conflicts in settings with larger than life heroes and villains, considering they certainly find such things interesting when it comes to other media like books and movies.

I doubt women would, in general, be very interested in what miniatures gamers refer to as competitive play; that is, where narrative, character, story are all trivialized for the sake of this strange conceit that someone can be determined to be “the best” at a random-dominant game. But the people interested in miniatures gaming in that sense constitute a niche of a niche of a niche even among men.

 Manchu wrote:
<snip>

Even something like Warhammer has virtually nothing to do with war as such; it’s really about characters doing interesting things in a fantastical story.

So even if we were to assume for the sake of argument that women don’t generally find war very appealing (which to me seems wrong) that would still be no explanation as to why women don’t play games about the sweeping dramatic conflicts in settings with larger than life heroes and villains, considering they certainly find such things interesting when it comes to other media like books and movies.

I'd argue that is only a small facet of the hobby (or hhhobby as the case may be).

You aren't just bringing an Orc character to do interesting things in a fantastical story, you are also spending hundreds of hours list building, buying, assembling and painting his 40 to 100 basic Orc buddies that are following him in to battle. Maybe that's just something that is less appealing to your average (or edge case) woman compared to man compared to using that same Orc character in an RPG, video game, etc.

I doubt women would, in general, be very interested in what miniatures gamers refer to as competitive play; that is, where narrative, character, story are all trivialized for the sake of this strange conceit that someone can be determined to be “the best” at a random-dominant game.

At the risk of turning this into another competitive vs casual discussion, the competitive to casual transition is a spectrum and I think an aspect of competitiveness finds it's way in to all but the most fluffy bunny of gamers.

 Paint it Pink wrote:


I beg to differ, she says. < (female wargamer speaking here.)

It depends on the period you play.

WW2 and on a platoon evolves. So, arguably 40+ models is 10 fire teams of four plus fire support; mortar/HMG etc.

Arguably one could one add or two vehicles in support too.

So while this is definitely down scaled war, the platoon has from WW2 been considered the smallest formation that operate on the battlefield before you end up with isolated skirmishing. Happy to be proved wrong.

Yep I have wargamed scenarios where the smallest unit was a section and for most of the scenario the military component was sub platoon. Wargaming doesn't have to be Operational or Strategic, some stuff if figuring out very down in the weeds tactical stuff.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I think an aspect of competitiveness finds it's way in to all but the most fluffy bunny of gamers.

Certainly yes, this must be the case because, after all, no matter what it is still a game where, at the end, one person wins and the other person loses. But there is one sense in which that factor is merely driving the unfolding story and another in which that factor is, for the players, the goal in itself. I suspect that for most people, miniatures gaming is a matter of the former rather than the latter. It doesn’t matter whether it’s one orc or 40-100; they are still “your guys” and their main function is to do cool things/have cool things happen to them.

My wife tells me there is too much "Mansplaining" in wargaming.

I did not believe her, until I read this thread.

 Manchu wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I think an aspect of competitiveness finds it's way in to all but the most fluffy bunny of gamers.

Certainly yes, this must be the case because, after all, no matter what it is still a game where, at the end, one person wins and the other person loses. But there is one sense in which that factor is merely driving the unfolding story and another in which that factor is, for the players, the goal in itself. I suspect that for most people, miniatures gaming is a matter of the former rather than the latter. It doesn’t matter whether it’s one orc or 40-100; they are still “your guys” and their main function is to do cool things/have cool things happen to them.

I tend to be of the opinion most people lie closer to the middle than the extrema, where the story is kinda not important without competitiveness and likewise competitiveness is kinda not important without some background. Potentially that "middle" is still offputtingly too competitive for many women gamers, I dunno.

Personally, I tend to care about story when I'm in the unsocialable portion of the hobby of building the army, I've always invented back stories for the forces and histories for the characters.... but once I hit the table top I don't need a story driven game other than "this is the objective". My observation is many GW gamers are like that, as I've rarely played against players who felt the need to "forge a narrative" so to speak, at most I get opponents who like to make pew pew pew noises


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Easy E wrote:
My wife tells me there is too much "Mansplaining" in wargaming.

I did not believe her, until I read this thread.

There's too much mansplaining in forums in general, and sometimes the worst mansplainers on forums are actually women

 Easy E wrote:
My wife tells me there is too much "Mansplaining" in wargaming.

I did not believe her, until I read this thread.

Explain, please, how a discussion online translates into how people treat each other in person.

I am just saying, my wife felt she experienced too much "Mansplaining" in wargaming. Then, I come here and there are plenty of men explaining why women aren't into wargaming. I think it is pretty obvious where the connection is between an in-person experience and the experience in this thread.

Now, this is more of an off-hand observation. There is no "winning" the argument or whatever. It is just an observation from one posters wife. Anecdotal evidence is not evidence, just one poster's wife's lived experience.

Doesn't mansplaining typically require a woman to be mansplained at?

AFAICS, there's one poster in this thread whost been open enough to admit she's a woman, and basically nobody has responded to anything she's said.

So while ignoring a woman (perhaps we'll see something she's said regurgitated by a male user later as their own idea) is quite typical male behaviour, labelling it mansplaining in this context just kinda feels like a need to label something with a buzzword, irrespective of how accurate it is.

I see the light now. I may have used an improper definition of "Mansplaining" when I applied it to a thread of men explaining why women may not be into wargaming.

Going forward, I will be sure to keep the opinions of the women I know who wargame, my wife and daughter; out of a discussion about women in wargaming.

Thanks for clearing it all up for me. In the meantime, please continue to discuss why there are not more women in wargaming. I am sure we will get to the bottom of it somehow.

So, certain people can't have an opinion on something because they are those certain people? Helpful.

I suppose, since there aren't any threads started by and being posted in only by women; and if men shouldn't be commenting on the topic; the problem goes away. Progress!

As I said before why push specific groups to a hobby. Why not just concentrate on who is interested in the hobby. If a woman, man, white person or black person seems excited about models or wargaming then get em into it.

Honestly for people in general even when people like this hobby the main thing preventing it is time, cost and effort. Why spend hundreds or thousands on something you don't know if you'll like with multiple hours assembling and painting when I could just bust out a computer game and play that.

I used to know a bunch of dudes that got into 40k when indie and only because Dawn of War 1 brought them in. If i remember correctly at least half the people in the shop i was in came in because of that game way back or half had at least played it.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
As I said before why push specific groups to a hobby. Why not just concentrate on who is interested in the hobby. If a woman, man, white person or black person seems excited about models or wargaming then get em into it.

It's not about pushing different groups in, its about finding ways to encourage and promote different groups to taking part. In the end more gamers is better all round. It means:


more customers for the companies making the games - that means more room for growth of the market.

more money for local stores and clubs - that means more local level support

more gamers at stores/clubs/events which means more chance for gaming, a greater skill and experience spread and overall more potential to support more titles.


Overall if you can find ways to keep what you have and welcome new people in its basically all gains for those involved.